cjtenny Posted March 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 Hey all, what considerations for safety should one take when making BP? Like, wooden mortar & pestle for grinding? That would reduce sparks, but what steps require you to worry about sparks? Also, what's a good source of sulfur and what safety precautions should that involve? Thanks
BPinthemorning Posted March 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 Sulfur is sold at garden shops. Mortar and pestles are fine, but if you use a ball mill, stick to lead or ceramic media. NO GLASS MARBLES. To be safe, if its your first time, make small batches, and always do this outdoors!
cjtenny Posted March 3, 2008 Author Posted March 3, 2008 Cool, thanks. Is a marble / some kind of stone mortar & pestle fine?
cjtenny Posted March 3, 2008 Author Posted March 3, 2008 Oops this shoulda gone in the safety forum. Also, with sulfur from garden shops, what do you do to reduce the acidity? What's inert enough / how do you take care of that?
mormanman Posted March 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 Sulfur is sold at garden shops. Mortar and pestles are fine, but if you use a ball mill, stick to lead or ceramic media. NO GLASS MARBLES. To be safe, if its your first time, make small batches, and always do this outdoors! Ceramic is actually not very safe. I have heard a story about an explosion. Don't use steal either, just in case.
jacob Posted March 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 but if you use a ball mill, stick to lead or ceramic media. Watch out here, there are age old discussions on whether or not ceramic media are safe to use on BP, some say they spark, some say they don't, but they have been known to ignite BP so it seems to be a crap shoot. Lead is definitely safe to use, as is Brass, and non-sparking Stainless Steel, due to the weight and availability of lead, it's what I use for all my milling so far, but I'm geting some Steel media to grind Mg/Al with soon.
cjtenny Posted March 3, 2008 Author Posted March 3, 2008 Cool, thanks. Anybody have info on the sulfur, now? Like, putting sidewalk chalk (milled, of course) in to neutralize the acid from the sulfur flowers?
Bonny Posted March 3, 2008 Posted March 3, 2008 Cool, thanks. Anybody have info on the sulfur, now? Like, putting sidewalk chalk (milled, of course) in to neutralize the acid from the sulfur flowers? You can often find good sulfur in pellet form in hydoponics shops that only needs to be ground up. When I first started I used dusting sulfur from garden shops that was IIRC 92% pure and it worked fine. There is some info on cleaning the acid out of flowers of sulfur here:http://www.wfvisser.dds.nl/EN/cheminfo_EN.html#sulfur
BPinthemorning Posted March 4, 2008 Posted March 4, 2008 Ya, about me saying ceramic is fine, don't take my word for it, do some research, and decide if you want to risk it for yourself.
nick2354 Posted March 8, 2008 Posted March 8, 2008 cjtenny where are you from? If you live in Australia you should be able to find high purity (99.9) dusting sulfur at most hardware stores.
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